Letter: School boards take a stand against PARCC

Monday

Jul 28, 2014 at 5:03 PM

Kudos to the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School Committee, as well as the Middleboro, Berkley, and Bridgewater Raynham school committees, among others, who have taken the bold step to reject the PARCC trial exam for students during this next school year. Why is this important?

Kudos to the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School Committee, as well as the Middleboro, Berkley, and Bridgewater Raynham school committees, among others, who have taken the bold step to reject the PARCC trial exam for students during this next school year. Why is this important?

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $330 million in Race to the Top grants to develop tests aligned with a new national Common Core state standards. Much of this $330 million was donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Massachusetts and 20 other states bought in to the standards and the PARCC assessment in exchange for grant money.

During the past four years, the Pioneer Institute as well as other research organizations have found vast and frightening reasons to delay or reject the high stakes test, and the questionable “rigorous” Common Core standards.

As of this summer, 10 of the 21 states have solidly rejected PARCC. States have withdrawn from utilizing PARCC for various reasons, including the unknown cost of implementing the computer generated, data extracting, timed test. Our own state representative, Keiko Orrall, has filed legislation for a cost analysis of this new federal initiative, realizing the burden that this could potentially have to the taxpayer.

Because of the votes of our school committees, our students are included with 66 percent of the Massachusetts communities who have either rejected PARCC or have not yet committed to using PARCC in the upcoming school year.

The Freetown-Lakeville, Berkley, Middleboro and Bridgewater Raynham school committee members have shown a true commitment to students, their families, and their constituents by rejecting the federal unfunded mandate. For once, our communities have had a voice in saying “no” to the deluge of education mandates that come with high costs and no funding.

We should be proud of our school committee members. They did their homework. They paid close attention and did not blindly follow the Department of Education. They have shown that they are mindful of their responsibility to students and at the same time to the taxpayers.